


people like us

by robpatFF



Category: Justin Bieber (Musician), One Direction (Band)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-12
Updated: 2013-06-12
Packaged: 2017-12-14 19:01:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/840289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/robpatFF/pseuds/robpatFF
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Zayn watches him, fists held up under his chin. “You should come meet us,” he says finally. “Might be good for you, and, like, Niall will get a kick out of it.”</p><p>“Flying off to Vienna is hardly ‘keeping my head down’,” Justin says. “S’posed to be keeping a low profile or something, I think.”</p><p>Or alternatively, Justin Bieber becomes One Direction's groupie for a few days.</p>
            </blockquote>





	people like us

**Author's Note:**

> I don't own anybody or anything, and I really don't know why this happened. I just know that it did.

He’s on stage at the Billboards when it comes, this overwhelming gasping sort of panic that squeezes around his lungs and shorts out the white noise in his head. He’d been elated a minute ago, in a muted _yeah, this is my life_ sort of way, before he’d been stood under the hot, beaming lights, staring out at the crowd with half his sleeve ripped off and his hair gelled up heavy on his head.

He can hear a few screams even from where he’s standing, the _I love you, Justin_ calls that have become something of a constant. It’s easy to take for granted, easy to ignore and focus on the blinking faces in the front of the crowd, the sheer mass of people looking at him up on this stage, and the disenchanted booing overshadows any of the declarations of love he’s so used to getting. It’s loud and palpable and it feels like the whole place is shaking with it, the underwhelmed buzzing that makes him stutter over his words, makes his armor set in place and his teeth clack together.

“All that other stuff doesn’t matter,” he’s saying into the mic. He’s trying to sound established, like an adult or some shit, but he can hear the whine in his tone, the pleading the bleeds over his tongue. “The music is what matters. I just wanna make my music.”

The whole venue vibrates with it. He’s used to the noise, used to the screaming girls and his lyrics being sung back to him. This though, this is something different, something tangible and real and he can almost taste the disappointment, the absolute _shit_ that’s being metaphorically slung at him. The lights are too bright and he can’t stop fucking stumbling over what he’s trying to say, what he’s trying to make them _see_ , and it’s only when he feels a hand on his elbow that he stumbles to a stop, tripping over the last few words and squinting out into the blinking lights.

“I just want to thank my fans,” he remembers to say. He can feel the sweat gathering in his hair. It’ll make the gel clumpy and gross, will make washing it out a fucking nightmare. It’s on his back too, gathering in the dip of his spine, and there’s a hand there now, someone guiding him off the stage and behind the scenes.

It’s like a circus back here. Cameras and shouts and flashing lights. There’s a camera being shoved in his face now, and he pastes on a smile, one that stretches too far across his face and makes his cheeks hurt. They ask him about his award, ask him about the audience’s reaction and it’s all--

“Did you expect them to boo you like that?”

\--and the _fuck you_ is just forming on his lips before someone’s pushing up against him, too sharp to be accidental. He catches his assistant’s eyes from behind the interviewer, takes in the flat line of her mouth and the warning that lifts up her eyebrows. 

“Nah,” he says, halfway to sounding easy and like a complete and total dick. “Can’t let the haters get you down, right?”

The camera leaves, and he’s letting out a sigh of relief, something heavy that empties out his lungs and leaves him breathless. “Fuck that,” he mutters, and there’s another hand, fingers gripping too tight and he’s being handed off to another guard, another body when all he wants to do is go back to home and wash his hair and _sleep_. 

“Smile,” someone instructs, so he does, smiles so hard his goddamn mouth starts to hurt from it, the way it stretches. “There’s Selena.”

His smile dims a little, a little more genuine when he leans in and hugs her. The cameras still flash, always fucking do, but Selena is warm and familiar and she smells like her favorite perfume. They can’t say much, there’s not really much to say anymore between them, but she still lets Justin lean in for a second, lets him rest his head on her shoulder like he used to after a bad day. He breathes her in, inhales deep because she’s always been safe and comfortable even now, even in the midst of a hundred people and all these cameras going off, blinding them. 

“Some speech,” she whispers, fingers running soft up his back, nails dragging against his shirt. “Didn’t expect such a tough crowd, did you?”

He laughs a little, closes his eyes and pillows his head on the feathers that line her sleeves. “Think they want an encore?”

Selena shakes her head, curls tickling the sides of his face. She’s always been like this, this quiet and calm presence that settles the rush of adrenaline under his skin, steadies his pulse to something normal, something that doesn’t make him want to lose it.

“You going home after this?” she asks, and there’s another hand on Justin’s back, one around his arm that threatens to pull him away. “You look tired.”

“M’exhausted,” he mumbles. “I think I’ve got an afterparty after this. I’m planning on getting absolutely fucking wasted.”

She laughs, shoves him off her, careful and gentle and firm. “Watch for the cameras,” she warns. “I’m getting tired of seeing you on the cover of every magazine when I’m in the grocery store, asshole. Leave some for the rest of us.”

“Will do,” he says, before he’s being shoved in the other direction with only the lingering scent of her perfume left. 

“Smile,” someone says again.

So he does.

\------

Justin wakes up on his living room couch, head resting on the floor, legs tangled up over the back of the cushion. Something may have quite literally _died_ in his mouth, and he swallows dry, winces at the way it catches, the way his throat burns a little. 

“Fuck,” he murmurs.

He stumbles up to the bathroom, empties out his stomach’s contents and wonders if he should even bother opening up his laptop or checking his phone. 

That can wait though, because he’s hungry now after all that, stomach grumbling to refill everything he’s just heaved up. Justin’s halfway through waffles and bacon before his head clears enough that he can even think about turning on his phone, can even listen to the sound of all the alerts coming in and he swallows down some orange juice and rests his head on the counter. 

He doesn’t bother lifting his head up again, just cranes his neck so he can blearily read through his texts. There’s some from Alfredo, none of them really making sense and mostly indecipherable. There’s a few from his mom, congratulatory and sympathetic, and he doesn’t want that now, so he saves them, doesn’t read them.

A few from people he remembers staggering into last night, before he shoved away from whoever was handling him at the time, pointedly ignoring the call of his name from behind him, sticking close to the wall before disappearing to the bar for a drink.

It had been one drink then, maybe another a little later. But after that is gets fuzzy and blurred and blacked out around the edges, licking at the sides of his vision.

He thumbs through a few more texts he doesn’t care about before Selena’s pops up. It’s just one, not very long, but it makes his heart beat a little faster all the same, makes his head pound again and he just barely manages not to throw his phone across his kitchen.

_Told you to watch out for the cameras, kiddo._

“Fuck,” he says again, and there’s his day. Fucking shot.

\-----

He gets extraordinarily chewed out. Not for drinking, because no one gives a shit about that in Hollywood. He gets chewed out for being stupid, for being reckless, for getting _caught_. 

“I know,” he says for the millionth time today. “Yeah, I know. I apologize. Yeah, I know.”

He’s scrolling through Twitter while getting his ass handed to him. That helps, for some reason, the fast pace of the _we still love justin_ and the _beliebers stand strong_ tweets that make him laugh a bit, the absurdity of all because this is his actual life, cameras and paparazzi and news stories and, like, Beliebers. 

There are a few tweets from Scooter, ones that tell him to keep his head down, don’t go doing anything stupid, and Justin resigns himself to a week of house arrest, of hats and sunglasses and sneaking out of his driveway like he’s just robbed the place. 

There’s a direct message from Niall, and Justin laughs at that. Niall’s good for distraction, good for a laugh and for cutting away the bullshit until Justin can deal again.

_don’t worry about the papers bro ! still a legend, fuck the rest of em hahahaha_

There’s another one right after. _zayn says you should start beating ppl up hahah ! wouldn’t do that if i were you mate_

Justin tweets something without thinking, probably some variation of “i still #believe” that makes him look like an absolute dick, something that’ll get retweeted thousands of times, and he’ll never really understand that part of it.

He reads over Niall’s a few more times, feels the tension bleed out of him a little bit, because Niall’s aura comes through even on the phone. Justin can just see the tilt of his smile, the way his head tilts back when he laughs. It’s a little harder picturing Zayn, picturing Zayn defending him, standing over Niall’s shoulder and telling him to add something. It’s easy to read Niall, but Zayn is--

Zayn is Zayn, and he’s unreadable as anyone Justin’s ever met. They’ve spent the night at each other’s houses, and Justin was the one to wrap Zayn’s ankle when he twisted it a few months back, boarding over Justin’s ramp, all crinkled eyes and flat hair and a small, incredulous laugh when he’d realized he’d fucked his ankle up. But, still. Zayn is like something that Justin’s never seen before. Something genuine and real that doesn’t happen as much anymore.

Justin’s up and grabbing his laptop before he realizes he’s still got someone on the phone, someone rehashing the terms of his public appearances, of his behavior, of how he’s supposed to present himself to the public and the cameras and the entire world so could he please not fuck it up again? He bites out an agreement, something flat and generic that gets his blood boiling a little, something that makes his nails dig into the meat of his palms.

“We done here?” he asks, and he’s hanging up the phone before he gets a response, booting up his laptop and opening Skype before he’s really thought anything through.

Niall’s online, always is when they’re not busy, the green by his name settling Justin’s nerves before they even exchange any words. He’s calling before he’s even collapsed back on the sofa, the heat from his laptop warming up his thighs under his sweatpants.

It’s not Niall who answers, but Zayn instead, peering at Justin through the grainy screen and smiling a little when Justin waves. “Looking for Nialler?”

“Yeah, um. Just wanted to talk, I guess? He around?” He feels like he’s back on the Billboard stage again, stuttering through his every thought and waiting for Zayn to tell him to shut the fuck up. “S’okay if he’s not.”

Zayn shakes his head, scooting up in his chair and getting his face closer to the screen. “Sorry man, think he’s out with Lou. Who knows when those two will be back, you know?”

“Right,” Justin sighs. He’d been looking for a distraction, willing to withstand one of Niall’s unbelievable stories about one of the million people he knows. He’s got Zayn though, all soft hair and a gentle smile that has Justin settling back into his cushions, content to listen to Zayn’s lilting accent, the way his tongue curls over his letters in that careful, deliberate way with how he chooses his words. “Just wanted to tell him thanks, I guess.”

“Yeah?” Zayn settles on his elbows. He’s in a hotel room, looks like, because Justin has seen his bedroom, has slept in the absolutely massive bed Zayn keeps in there. “What did he do?”

Justin shrugs, fiddles with his phone before he remembers he’s turned it off. “Dunno, just--” He shuts his eyes, tilts his head back and lets it hang a little. He’s tired, still a little hungover from whatever the fuck he did last night and he’s sure he looks like it too. “Nice to know I have a friend?” It sounds unbelievably pathetic when he says it, like he’s whining and ungrateful, and he’s _not_ , but. “Seems like people only want to fuck me over lately.”

Zayn hums. He makes Justin feel like an absolute tool, with the deliberate way he speaks, each word thought out and chosen carefully before he utters it. “Reckon you’ve got more than one friend,” he says. “I told Niall we could just beat everyone up.”

“He wouldn’t,” Justin says. “He’d take them out for a drink and have them over for fuckin’ like, tea or something, man.”

Zayn laughs, the one that Justin’s only heard a handful of times, where his eyes crinkle up and his nose wrinkles. “Don’t tell him that, yeah? Let him think he’s proper hard.”

“Where are you guys anyway?”

Zayn frowns, eyes glistening a little under the dim light of the lamp at the hotel desk. “Vienna. S’mental here, mate. I think there were, like, a thousand people outside our hotel earlier.”

“There’s Europe for you,” Justin tells him. He can only imagine what they’ll be doing, the five of them, let loose in Vienna for a few days with too much energy to burn. He knows the feeling, the adrenaline that seems to spark at the tips of his fingers, sets his heart beating too fast and gets his head spinning after a show. There’s a pang of something in his chest, thinking about being on tour, thinking about holing himself up in his hotel room when he didn’t want to chance getting photographed fucking off after a two hour show. “I’ll just--don’t wanna bore you with my sob stories, man. I’ll let you go have some fun.”

Zayn shrugs. He shoves a hand through his hair, smiling a little through the screen. “Not really doing anything at the moment. I could either track down Niall and Lou or join Harry and Liam in the gym. Not planning on doing either of those.”

“You’re so lucky, man,” Justin tells him, before he’s really thought about. “Being on tour alone is like--fucking awful, really. Being alone in general, little tired of that.” He’d take the words back if he could, because he sounds like a spoiled little rich kid right about now. He’s never really alone; he’s probably got a dozen paps outside his window, got his security guards somewhere on his property, lurking around. 

Zayn watches him, fists held up under his chin. “You should come meet us,” he says finally. “Might be good for you, and, like, Niall will get a kick out of it.”

“Flying off to Vienna is hardly ‘keeping my head down’,” Justin says. “S’posed to be keeping a low profile or something, I think.”

“Fuck that,” Zayn says. He gets it though, been in the business long enough to know how to stay out of the public eye when you need to. “We’re, like, I don’t know. We’ll be in America in a few weeks? You could bunk with me for a couple days or whatever.”

“You serious?” Justin asks. It seems too good to be true, running off from his problems to bum it groupie-style with One Direction for a few days. But Zayn’s looking at him, calm and steady like always, his mouth tilted a little hopefully, like there’s a chance Justin might tell him no. He wonders if anyone’s ever had the balls to tell Zayn no. “Yeah, I--yeah, man. If you think it’d be okay with the rest of your band. Don’t know if they’re all very fond of me.”

Zayn shrugs again, but he’s smiling, shoulders set a little lower from what Justin can make out on his laptop screen. “Well, me and Niall tolerate you well enough,” he teases, and Justin flips him off, breathing a bit easier at the prospect of an _escape_. “Don’t really think Harry much cares either way. Lou’s a bit fond of the way you’ve been giving every camera the bird recently, like a real bad man. And you know, Li, yeah? He likes everyone until they piss him off. It’ll be fine.”

“But shouldn’t you ask anyway?” Justin presses. “Don’t lead me into an ambush, man. The last thing I need is three fifths of One Direction hating me. That’ll be news for months.”

Zayn laughs again, slow and easy and quiet. “You worry too much.”

“Tell my publicist that,” Justin says. “Actually, come here and tell _People_ that. I think their next cover story is how I’ve turned to a life of drugs and crime.”

“Yeah, didn’t you get busted for drugs a few weeks ago? They’re not far off.”

“It was _weed_ ,” Justin tells him. “In fucking Amsterdam, man.”

“Rough,” Zayn says. He’s still smiling though, this small, genuine thing that settles Justin’s nerves and keeps him calm, steady. “We can smoke up when you get here if you’re so hard up for the good stuff, yeah? Go wild.”

“Getting high and probably watching shitty movies all night,” Justin says. “Real party.”

It’s Zayn who flips him off this time, his rings glinting in the lamplight and his hair falling in his eyes. “Look, I’ll text you, okay? Figure out where’s good for you to meet us.”

“You’re serious, right?” Justin asks again. He wants it now, to get away from this, to hideaway in a tour bus that isn’t his own and eat shitty road food and stay up watching infomercials in the middle of the night. He wants Niall’s easy laughter and Zayn, like this. Soft and careful and genuine. “Not gonna stand me up?”

“Cross my heart, man,” Zayn says. “I’ll see you in a few weeks, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Justin repeats. 

He stares at the screen a little longer even after Zayn hangs up, breathes out heavy and slow and counts down the days until he can let someone else take the spotlight for once.

\-----

It’s not hard to work out, in the end. 

Justin flies to Miami in the middle of the night to avoid the crowds and the screaming and the cameras. He’s half asleep when he gets off the plane, neck a little sore from the seats and his eyelids heavy and drooping as he drags his bags across the terminal. He’s got a body behind him, some security guard that looks a little different from the last one, but not so much that Justin is sure they’re not the same.

He’s got instructions to wait under his gate, so he does that, shoulders slumped and hair rumpled and sunglasses pushed up on his nose. He feels like a total dick, waiting in the middle of baggage claim like this, shades on and the weary weight of entitled fame hung over him like neon lights. He’s not really sure who he’s meant to be waiting on, but he’s still surprised to see Zayn sloping over to him, flanked by Paul, hat tilted over his eyes and a tired smile hovering on the edges of his mouth.

“Good flight?” he asks, and Justin nearly _falls_ into Zayn’s outstretched arms, exhaustion creeping up on him and the reality of actually being away from the bullshit for a few days finally more than a possibility. “Okay?”’

“Yeah,” Justin breathes out. He can’t really imagine how they must look, clinging to each other in the middle of a Miami airport, but Zayn is warm and soft and hugging him back, and he’s the friendliest face Justin has seen in weeks, maybe months. “Yeah, m’good.”

“Better now though, right?” Zayn jokes, but Justin’s nodding before he’s finished, fingers gripping the hem of his shirt, pulling Zayn closer and inhaling the smell of smoke and Zayn’s woodsy cologne. “Wanna get food?”

“Wanna sleep,” Justin murmurs. “Think I could eat a burger and do that?”

“Could try,” Zayn offers, before he’s taking one of Justin’s bags and slinging it over his shoulder. “C’mon, we can order room service.”

“Your treat?”

“My treat, yeah. Since you’re so hard up for money, mate.”

Justin nudges him a bit, keeps their shoulders and arms close as they walk out towards where the car is idling. He presses up against Zayn once they’re behind the darkened glass, arms and thighs and knees touching, and Justin rests his head against Zayn’s bony shoulder, despite how uncomfortable it is.

“That tired?” Zayn asks him.

“Fuckin’ exhausted,” he mutters back, the words muffled in Zayn’s hoodie. It’s sleep-warm like the rest of Zayn, smells bitter and expensive all mixed in one. “Sure this is okay?”

“Little late if it wasn’t.” Zayn shifts a bit, leans against the car door so Justin can lean more on him. “You gonna fall asleep and make me carry you in the hotel?”

Justin shuts his eyes, more than a bit lulled by the gentle motion of the car traveling down the empty streets. “Niall would do it.”

“He’s not as nice as you think.”

“Are you nice?” Justin asks him. He’s halfway to being asleep, comforted by the muggy Miami heat and the broad plane of Zayn’s chest. “The mysterious Zayn Malik.”

Zayn snorts, the sound a little distorted as Justin keeps his eyes shut and drifts closer to sleep. “D’ya reckon I’m as mysterious as everyone says?”

“I reckon fuck what everyone says,” Justin murmurs. “Fuck ‘em, man.”

Zayn laughs, quiet and echoing in the car. “You’re so out of it.” His voice is low, raspy with sleep and soothing. “Go to sleep.”

“G’na carry me?”

“M’gonna get Paul to carry you,” Zayn says back. He runs gentle fingers over Justin’s shoulder, constant and steady. “You’re lucky I like you.”

“I like _you_ ,” Justin argues. He might say something else, but he’s mostly asleep now, limbs heavy and draped over whatever part of Zayn he can reach. He thinks Zayn might laugh again, somewhere in the distance, but the sound is muffled and distorted and probably dreamt up, so Justin sleeps instead.

\-----

Touring with One Direction is a mess and a jumble of words that Justin can’t really think of. He’s still half-asleep when he feels someone jumping on the hotel bed he’s sharing with Zayn, can feel Zayn still heavy and sleep-warm and still behind him.

“Wake up, bro,” Niall says, and Justin rolls his eyes into his pillow before he turns over and looks up into Niall’s smiling, tired face. “Rise and shine.”

“What fuckin’ time is it?” Justin croaks out. He tries to keep his voice quiet, aware of Zayn’s soft breathing behind him, the careful way his chest rises and falls. 

Niall flops down, all flailing limbs and poking fingers and no regard for the bed or for sleep. He smushes his face in Justin’s chest and shoves at Zayn, doesn’t stop until Zayn’s got one eye open and his lip curled. “Midday,” Niall says. “Normal waking hours.”

Zayn doesn’t answer, but he rolls over a bit, so he face is pushed into Justin’s shoulder and they’re all tangled on the bed, sleep-slow and too warm with the mess of blankets and sheets. 

“Turn something on then,” Justin says. He can’t go back to sleep now, not with Niall heavy on top of him and Zayn smelling like soap and sleep right next to him, all soft hair and softer eyes and careful, gentle fingers around Justin’s wrists. “Preferably something mindless.”

Niall rolls off him to fiddle with the television, and that leaves him and Zayn and the way Zayn’s voice rasps quietly in Justin’s ear. “Y’alright?” Zayn asks. 

He nods, taking in the smudge of Zayn’s eyelashes across his cheek, the way his fingers tap out a steady, restless beat against Justin’s skin. “Been better,” he admits, but this is good. This is quiet and easy and Niall’s flinging himself back on the bed with them and that’s easy too. 

They watch some cartoon that Justin’s never seen before, something that makes Niall’s chest vibrate with laughter from where he’s laid up on Justin. It makes Zayn doze again, eyelashes fluttering and blinking awake every few minutes, smiling at the screen and undermining the show’s logic, just to annoy Niall. He smirks at Justin when he does it, laughing quietly at the way Niall tells him to _go the fuck back to sleep, Zayn_ , before he listens and actually does, fingers curled up in the sheets.

It’s nearing late afternoon before Justin finally forces himself out of the bed. Niall and Zayn are both asleep, exhausted from fighting over the merits of the Scooby Doo gang splitting up to investigate in every episode. It makes Justin’s head hurt a bit, the way they can just talk about _anything_ and not even blink. It’s strange, weird even, and maybe Justin’s the weird one for not having anyone he can do that with. It fits them though, Niall and Zayn, the way they can argue about Scooby Doo one moment and be curled up against each other the next. 

He ventures out into the hallway. The entire floor’s just band and crew, so he’s not worried about fans or pictures or being exposed. This isn’t his band and crew though, this is someone else’s, and he’s the outsider here, the one creeping down the hallway and looking for a halfway to familiar face. He finds one, when a door opens suddenly and Harry Styles is sticking his head out, blinking at Justin and the bright hotel lights.

“Hi,” he says. 

Justin’s only met him once unofficially, back when he and Selena had gone skiing. It wasn’t much of a meeting, more like trying not to make himself look stupid in front of a guy who still looked good in a clunky snowsuit and goggles tucked away inside his curls. He has much the same feeling now, with Harry staring down at him.

“Hey, man.”

“Niall and Zayn up yet?” Harry asks. “Was gonna come tell them I’m gonna order breakfast.”

It’s nearly four in the afternoon, but fuck if Justin is going to tell him that. “Nah, they just went back to sleep actually.”

“Arseholes,” Harry murmurs. “D’ya want to come in? I feel like a bit of a twat making you stand in the hallway, is all.”

Harry ends up ordering almost the entire breakfast menu once they’ve settled down inside. “Trust me,” he says. “They’re like wolves. Sniff out anything.”

“Is it wolves that do that, dude?” Justin asks him. Harry’s bullied him into laying on the bed, so he is, languishing on egyptian cotton that smells like unfamiliar cologne and faintly of sex. “Thought that was, like, bears.”

Harry hums. He’s shuffling through his suitcase, bent over only in a pair of briefs. Justin vaguely wonders when they made it here, to where this was okay, but Harry smiles at him over his shoulder, dimpled cheeks and a genuine smile, and Justin figures he should be grateful for that. 

“You’re thinking of sharks,” Harry says. “Best olfactory sense in the ocean.”

“Hardly relevant on land though, right?’

“Oh my god,” Harry says. “You’re exactly like Zayn. Stop arguing with me about animals, please.”

Justin laughs, curling up on Harry’s big as fuck bed and watching him go answer the door for their food. 

He wonders how Harry manages to sleep in a bed this big by himself, if the loneliness ever creeps over him like an extra layer of darkness in the dead of night. It doesn’t seem like it, doesn’t seem like anything ever really cracks the soft curve of Harry’s mouth, ever dims the light behind his green eyes. 

“Hungry?” Harry asks, and he folds himself up on the bed beside Justin, trays laid out between them. 

It isn’t long before the door to Harry’s hotel creaks open, and there’s Louis first, peeking his head in. “I hope you ordered enough for me,” he says, and he’s got Liam behind him, tall and lithe and more than a little intimidating until he smiles at Justin and Justin remembers that Liam had nearly _cried_ after he met Jay-Z last year.

“And you brought me a Bieber,” Louis says. “Hello, Bieber.”

“S’only your Bieber ‘til Zayn wakes up,” Harry tells him through a mouthful of waffles. Justin almost protests, but then he remembers the feel of Zayn’s fingers across his skin, secret and gentle. He remembers Zayn slinging an arm around Justin’s waist before they fell asleep. So he doesn’t say anything. “Or Niall, maybe.”

“Zayn,” Louis and Liam say at the same time, and Justin wonders if everyone in this band knows everything. “Does Niall realize his Bieber’s been stolen?” Louis asks. “Poor lad.”

“S’not like that,” Justin just barely manages. He might have gotten away with it, if the door didn’t open again. If Zayn didn’t peek his head through the crack with a, “Have you seen Justin?” before he spotted him on the bed.

If Zayn didn’t steal food off Justin’s plate and use his lap as a pillow.

He might have gotten away with it, if it weren’t for all that. The way his fingers slide through Zayn’s thick, soft hair like a bad habit. The way Zayn smiles up at him, sleepy-eyed and languid, whispering, “Still good?” quiet enough that the others can’t hear.

The way Justin leans back in a bed that isn’t his, surrounded by people he doesn’t know very well and one he does, and whispers back, “I’m good, yeah.”

\-----

The tour bus is a different thing entirely. It’s more cramped than Justin’s used to, because there’s fucking five people in this band, and he’s just _Bieber_ at any given time. 

He stays tucked away in Zayn’s bunk mostly, out of sight and out of the way. Zayn stays with him when they’re not soundchecking and not performing. Justin wants to go, wants to feel the arena vibrate with sound and get sweaty under the bright lights and wants to look out into the crowd and see One Direction getting their lyrics sung back to them.

“Thought you were meant to keep a low profile,” Zayn reminds him, so there’s that sorted. Not happening.

It’s different, in that there are a million people around all the time, calling out names and directions and commands. It’s overwhelming at first, because Justin’s so used to responding to barked orders that it takes him a bit to remember these orders aren’t for him. He finds himself hanging behind Zayn, sometimes Niall, waiting for them to take the lead, to reach back and grab his hand and he can just follow for once. Let someone else do the heavy work.

So he hides out in Zayn’s bunk mostly, fiddling with a phone he refuses to turn on and helping Harry clean in the middle of the night when everyone else on the bus is passed out and they’re both keyed up for different reasons, but the same end result. 

They don’t sleep, and they don’t talk really. But Harry lets Justin vacuum the lounge floor while he scrubs down the counters and window sills until their eyes are drooping and Justin can slink back into Zayn’s bunk and press their bodies together, just enough that Zayn won’t wake up.

The bus rolls on, over highways and through cities and towns and then it’s been a week, and Justin finally turns on his phone, closing his eyes and listening to the sounds of all the alerts popping up and loading. It seems to take ages, minutes or maybe an hour, if Justin’s counting right. It finally stops, and he feels fingers on his back, a chin digging into his shoulder.

“Don’t look yet,” Zayn murmurs. “We’re about to make a stop. Come out and smoke with me.”

They’re in like South Carolina or something, Justin’s stopped asking, but the air is muggy and warm and his shirt sticks to him as he and Zayn climb off the tour bus. They go around to the back, leaning back against the bus, and Justin listens to the familiar sound of Zayn rolling a joint, his fingers nimble and adept even under the night sky.

Zayn offers it to him first, and Justin inhales deep, relishes the burn in his chest and the fuzzy feeling in his bones, in his head. “You ever get caught doing this?”

“Nah.” Zayn shakes his head, but he cranes his neck to check around the bus, makes sure no one’s lurking off in the distance. “Think you’re the only one, mate.”

Justin elbows him, closes his eyes and lets the smooth, throaty sound of Zayn’s laughter wash over him. “Everything’s so fucked up,” he says. And maybe he’s talking about getting caught with weed, maybe he’s talking about everything else. 

Zayn hums. Their arms press together, smoke mingling and stinging at their nostrils. “D’ya want to talk about it?”

He’s giving Justin an out, giving him some room to say no, and Justin just. Zayn let him crash in their hotel, their cramped as hell tour bus. Zayn let him disappear in the middle of the night to go _clean_ with Harry Styles and Justin’s saying yeah before he realizes.

“It’s just, like, it’s so much, you know?” he says. “I’ve been doing this for like five years now, and I thought it would get easier, I don’t know.”

“Not half as good if it’s easy,” Zayn murmurs, shrugging a bit, his shoulders and arms loose from the smoke. “Don’t think anything about this is meant to be easy, is it?”

Justin laughs, it’s raw and it hurts his throat and it doesn’t really make him feel any better. “Don’t think it’s meant to be this hard either. Maybe, I’m like. Fuck, I don’t know. I keep messing it up.”

“I think you’re doing okay,” Zayn says. “Niall still thinks the sun shines out your arse, s’all that matters, yeah?”

He gives a real laugh this time, leaning into Zayn’s bony shoulders and looking out into the trees that hide them away. “What do you think?”

Zayn scoffs a little, shoving his hair back from his face. “S’hardly any room for the sun when your head’s so far up there, man.”

“ _Harsh_ ,” Justin cries. “Do you even like me at all, bro?”

“Yeah, _bro_ ,” Zayn says. “Don’t really know why. Heard in the papers you’re a total dick.”

Justin feels his smile dim a little, wondering what the papers have said about him now that he’s been tagging along with a boyband for the past week. Someone knows surely, someone’s seen them. He almost wants to Google it, just to know what to expect when he gets back to reality. 

“Hey,” Zayn says quietly. Carefully. “M’just joking, you know.” He opens his arm up and Justin shifts into him, easy like they’ve been doing this forever. “I think you’re alright. More than that, even.”

“More than that,” Justin murmurs back. “You _liiiike_ me.”

Zayn laughs a little, his chest and shoulders moving with it. “Were you this smooth with Selena?”

The weed makes Justin languid and lazy and slow, so he just nods, smile pulling at the corners of his mouth. “Even smoother.”

“You’re really wooing me here,” Zayn tells him. “M’proper infatuated.”

“No big words,” Justin whines. He’s mostly letting Zayn hold him up now, fingers gripping the edge of Zayn’s tank and head pillowed on his shoulders. “Save it for the morning.”

“Save what for the morning?”

“All of it,” Justin tells him. He thinks he might wave his hand around, but he’s at that point where his arms don’t really feel connected to his body anymore. It feels like he’s floating, really. “The phone and the big words and the, like, wooing and shit. Tomorrow.”

He lets Zayn pull him back into the bus. It’s still empty, everyone else still wherever they are, stocking up on food and drinks and whatever else. It’s hard to care when Zayn’s hand is burning a brand in the small of Justin’s back, pushing him towards the bunks, slipping off his shoes and sliding them both into bed. 

It’s hot under the covers and both of them are giving off too much heat, but Justin pushes close to Zayn anyway, inhales bitter smoke and the stale smell of being cramped on a bus for days and the lingering scent of soap. 

“I like you too,” he remembers to say, but his tongue feels heavy in his mouth and his eyes won’t open. He’s either half-asleep or dying, but he’s too comfortable to tell.

“Tomorrow,” Zayn says, barely there and mostly mouthing the words against Justin’s skin. It’s enough though, the heat and the bunk and _Zayn_ , so Justin sleeps.

He’s good.

\-----

He wakes up in the middle of the night a little foggy-headed, eyes bleary and throat dry. Zayn’s still wrapped octopus-style around him, pillow creases on his face and mumbling a bit when Justin slips out of the bunk, feet padding silently over the floor. The rest of the boys are still asleep as he makes his way towards the little makeshift kitchen, firing up the little electric kettle and trying to remember exactly how one makes tea.

He’s got the water part down before he hears footsteps shuffling in behind him, smells smoke before he feels Zayn’s hands around his waist, long, nimble fingers playing at his sides. 

“Teabag,” Zayn croaks out. “In the cabinet. And also plug the kettle in, Justin, c'mon.”

Justin grabs another mug while he’s at it, and two teabags, grimacing at the herbal that’s printed across the front. “Dunno how you drink this all the time,” he says. “Coffee or bust.”

“My bus, my rules,” Zayn tells him. He doesn’t move, keeps his mouth up against Justin’s neck while his fingers play with the hem of the t-shirt. “Why’re you up?”

Justin shrugs. There’s something swirling in the base of his stomach, questions and worry and a bunch of other shit he doesn’t want to deal with yet. But there’s Zayn, making him feel off-balanced and settled at the same time. Zayn, who makes him forget and makes him remember and makes him want to deal with it so they can just deal with _this_.

“Were you serious?” Justin asks him. “Earlier, I mean.”

Zayn is quiet, fingers roaming under Justin’s shirt a little. “Does this count as the morning?”

“ _Yes_.”

“Then, yes,” Zayn says. 

Justin smiles a little, at Zayn’s bluntness, how he just is all the time. Himself, without all the bullshit. “So what does this mean?”

Zayn digs his jaw into Justin’s shoulder a bit more. It’ll probably bruise, be a reminder once he’s back on the West Coast and under the watchful eye of the entire world. “Whatever you want it to mean, I guess.”

Justin sighs, watches the tea boil with disinterest. “Everything is so fucking hard.”

“Doesn’t have to be,” Zayn counters. “This can be easy. You could just let me kiss you.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Zayn says. “You ever done that before, man?”

“Shut _up_ ,” is all Justin gets out before Zayn’s spinning him around a bit, kissing him and he’s got weed and candy and sleep on his breath, and it’s a little gross, and a lot not gross at all.

Zayn pushes him back against the counter, brackets Justin so he’s stuck there. He doesn’t mind really, being stuck and kissing Zayn and listening to the kettle whistle a little too loud to get their attention. They manage to ignore it for a bit, because there are more pressing matters, like Zayn’s tongue and Zayn’s mouth and his fingers that move up to grip around Justin’s waist, the way he moves their hips together.

“You good?” Zayn asks when they pull apart. Justin nods a little, maybe, a little dazed if he’s being honest. Zayn just reaches past him, turns off the kettle and raises his eyebrows. “You look a little--”

And then Justin’s kissing him again. “M’good,” he manages between breaths, the words coming out a little slurred against Zayn’s mouth. “M’good, I’m amazing, I’m fantastic--”

“Shut up,” Zayn says. “Can I--fuck, I wanna--” his hands play at the waistband of Justin’s sweatpants, and Justin’s nodding yes before he even really understands, pushing at the cinched waist of his sweats and cursing a little when Zayn gets his dick out.

“Oh my god,” he groans. He lets his head fall on Zayn’s shoulder, biting his lip as Zayn’s fingers work over him, dry at first, then spit, and Justin shudders hard. “Oh my god.”

“Ya gotta hurry up,” Zayn mutters. “Someone’ll wake up soon, c’mon.” He’s gasping a little, and Justin can feel him rutting a bit against his hip, the slow and easy drag of their sweatpants making him shiver and bite at Justin’s skin. “C’mon.”

“ _Okay_ ,” he says, and Zayn’s stroking him a little harder, a little faster, fingers flicking over the head and his mouth sucking a bruise into Justin’s neck. “Fuck.”

His nails dig into Zayn’s back, maybe breaking the skin but it’s hard to care when he’s got a hand on his dick, got _Zayn’s_ hand on his dick, slick and warm and good, and Justin’s shaking apart faster than he’d like, moans getting muffled in Zayn’s shirt and bitten off as he tries to stay quiet. He slumps against Zayn, who’s still grinding against him, sounding choked up and fucked out all on his own. Justin moves his hips a little, gives Zayn something to move against and that’s good, because Zayn’s biting down on Justin’s neck and trembling a little, goes heavy and breathless once he’s done.

“Fuck,” Justin says again, and Zayn bites at him. “Did you seriously tell me to hurry up?”

Zayn giggles a little, sleepy and sated and quiet. “You don’t get it. They’re like bears. They’ll sniff us out in a second.”

“You mean sharks,” Justin tells him wisely. “Best olfactory sense in the ocean.”

Zayn wrinkles his nose a little. “Yeah, okay, but how is that relevant on land?”

“S’exactly what I said.”

Zayn finishes making the tea, because he actually knows what he’s doing. They lay out on the lounge sofa, legs all stretched out and mugs warm in their hands. Justin finds some shitty Sci-Fi movie on, something about like deranged piranhas or something, and feels Zayn tucks his toes up under Justin’s thighs.

“You good?” Zayn asks.

And Justin leans back, fingers curled around his mug and his body tired and sated. His phone is on the counter, messages and phone calls still unanswered and unaccounted for. He has to deal with his publicist and his label and Scooter and his mom, eventually. He has to deal with the rest of the world watching and waiting for him to fuck up again.

But right now he only has to deal with Zayn, who’s half-asleep and quiet and droopy, eyelids fluttering against his cheeks. He’ll have to deal with Niall later, who’ll listen if he wants to whine some more, who’ll make him laugh and sling an arm around his shoulder and tell him to stop fucking worrying so much.

He’ll have to deal with the rest of One Direction, who are all really goddamn weird, when he thinks about it too much, so he doesn’t.

So he just thinks about being here on this sofa right now, watching some shitty movie and maybe kissing Zayn again, later, if that’s a thing they’re going to be doing now. More. All the time, hopefully.

“I’m good,” he says. 

And he is. He’s so good.

\-----


End file.
